Karnataka, Tamil Nadu among 14 Indian states vulnerable to climate hazards: Report

The XDI looked into 2,600 territories across the world in response to demand from investors for data on sub-sovereign and regional risk for the year 2050

As many as 14 states in India, including Bihar and Karnataka, are among the top-100 provinces in Asia that stand exposed to damage from extreme weather and climate change, says a first-of-its-kind analysis of potential damage to infrastructure that has flagged China, the United States and India as the most vulnerable countries.

The Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI) looked into 2,600 territories across the world in response to demand from investors for data on sub-sovereign and regional risk for the year 2050. The most vulnerable areas were ranked based on aggregated damage ratio in places with high built infrastructure.

The Gross Domestic Climate Risk analysis comes at a time when India is looking forward to more and more foreign investment. Among the global most at-risk states/provinces are Bihar (22), Uttar Pradesh (25), Assam (28), Rajasthan (32), Tamil Nadu (36), Maharashtra (38), Gujarat (44), Punjab (48), Kerala (50), and Madhya Pradesh (52). Karnataka comes at the 65th spot.

Read | China provinces top list of world's most climate-vulnerable regions: Data

Karl Mallon, Director of science and systems, XDI, said the study was unique in the sense that it combines the built environment and the climate change impact, and brings them together into a combined data set that tells us about the climate change risk to the global economy.

"We are specifically trying to drill down to the economic centres in those countries. We have placed nearly 320 million assets around the world to get a high precision view of the states and territories. This approach allows us to really look at things like sub sovereign bonds, fixed income products that are of great interest to investors but also an insight into risks to the economy," he said.

Speaking about the different ways in which different countries are exposed to the risks, he said, "We get an extremely strong signal from China, the US and India. Essentially, we see that the engine-rooms of the global economy, where there is a lot of built infrastructure, are some of the places with strong confluence of (events) sea-level rise, riverine flooding, surface flooding and in some cases, wildfire, hurricane."

The results are based on the high emission scenario (RCP 8.5), a baseline for physical risk analysis conducted by the banks in their stress tests around the world. China led the world with 29 of the 100 most vulnerable provinces or states, followed by the United States (18) and India (14).

Read | Can clouds of Moon dust combat climate change?

CEO of XDI, Rohan Hamden, said that even now the best strategy is to reduce carbon emission. "Certainly, we are already feeling the significant impacts of weather events around the world. We just want to make sure that every investment is made in a climate resilient way," he said.

Georgina Woods, Head of Impact of Climate Risk Group, said countries need to move swiftly to implement national adaptation plans. "Many of the places highlighted in the results have already been suffering from the hazards that we are modelling.. The inhabitants of these places should talk to their communities and government on how to build resilience," she said.

The experts noted that property value has already come down in many high-risk areas while insurance prices have gone up. It is very likely that investors are going to start adding a climate change risk premium against their expectations in terms of the value of the (market) bonds.